Month: October 2013

Halloween, or Day of the Dead, has become a night of fun and remembrance for many human cultures in the northern hemisphere. Today, we have a new Marc Latham Folding Mirror poem posted on the fmpoetry.wordpress.com website yesterday.

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey. As the Earth’s axial tilt points southerly at the sun for this half of its orbit around the sun, the northern hemisphere loses most contact with the sun.

For old pagan cultures it was the end of the year. With harvests finished, it was a time to celebrate, give thanks, and remember. They believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and dead was at its thinnest during this time of year.

Horror and Sacrifice: Of Man and Wolf

Unfortunately, they also used to sacrifice animals, although it was probably no worse than the slaughtering of animals today when stunning and strict slaughterhouse rules are not followed.

Talking of harvests and slaughterhouses, they are calling the hunting of wolves as a harvest in the U.S.A., and one group of human hunters saw fit to dress up like Leatherface off The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for it. Quite fitting for Halloween, which is most popular in the U.S.A.!

The U.S.A. does also have a rich abundance of wildlife though, unlike the U.K., and many wildlife advocates who work tirelessly for animals.

I thought that was quite fitting, as the ‘wolf hunt’ is a human massacre motivated by sadism and greed. If wolves did the reverse it would make them look like… werewolves!

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a werewolf in a horror movie posing with its victim. So in this regard, the humans above, and their fellow trophy and sports hunters, traditionally including the British royal family, are worse than a horror writer’s worst werewolf nightmares.

Halloween Horrors Poem

The cover to Leatherface #1, the first in a series of comics based on the film series (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Marc said the wolf massacre was the main catalyst for the Halloween poem below, but it is just one of humanity’s many horrible assaults on nature in the world; whether for sport and luxury goods, or land and wealth, humanity is driven by ego, economy and population to continue destroying the natural world and its fellow lifeforms.

Have fun with humanity-created witches and werewolves for Halloween night, but for your own benefit and that of the natural world, it’s best to remember that the real horror of the world is no doubt humanity.

Although there are lots of nice things about humans too, including helping some animals. Humans are victims of other animals sometimes too.

However, if God created werewolves to scare and destroy, maybe that’s why it gave one day to the wolf, and about thirty to humanity.

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”Robert Oppenheimer‘s thoughts upon seeing the first artificial nuclear explosion; by a bomb he had helped create.

There’s a horrendous hurricane sweeping across Britain at this very moment, doing lots of damage to the greenygrey countryside, as well as threatening life, so we’ve delved into the vaults, and decided to post the first episode of the week of your favourite werewolf travels Australia to a Wizard of Oz theme travel quest epic satirical comedy classic virtual travel excellent expeditionary exercise in literary nonsense… but with a story and end.

‘The repetition of an initial consonant sound, as in “a peck of pickled peppers.” As J.R.R. Tolkien observed, alliteration “depends not on letters but on sounds.” Thus the phrase know-nothing is alliterative, but climate change is not.’

The alliteration is inspired by a star name and mythical mothman; met on our first epic ramble across North America.

Chapter 118. Spit the Dog Reserved in Sydney

We continued north to the Opera House, where I felt like a proper tourist, and not a bedraggled traveller from another dimension. We looked at a Sydney map there, and one place stood out straight away: the Spit Reserve. I was a big fan of Spit the Dog when it starred on Tiswas, and thought the reserve must be where it now resided.

Crossing the Harbour Bridge to the Spit Reserve

The Mothman Prophecies (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The others agreed to go there, so we made our way across Harbour Bridge to the north, with great views of Little Sirius Cove below. Pebbles glinted in the sunshine like stars on a clear night. Mosman reminded me of that Mothman creature I met while one half of the Greenygrey on our epic ramble across North America. Magical memories momentarily materialised once more.

There was a Spit Road leading to the Spit Reserve. I was impressed with the amount of respect they had bestowed upon my favourite puppet dog.

Spit The Dog (Photo credit: tim ellis)

Entering the Spit Reserve was like every Spit the Dog fan’s dream, as there were dozens of the dogs all enjoying life in safety; although I couldn’t be sure if I saw the original Spit amongst them.

They seemed reserved compared to the original Spit, with not much wild spitting going on at all; I guess the passing of time in such a comfortable reserve had mellowed the spitline out.

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Notes

Spit the Dog was a puppet worked by Bob Carolgees on Tiswas (1970s/1980s fun variety show).

Hi, it’s Baron Wolfman, head honcho of Greenygrey Creation in the absence of the legendary Andy Wolfhol, who is perhaps most fondly remembered in the Greenygrey world for his favourite slogan catchphrase ‘Wolf not War’.

It’s Halloween week this week, with the main night in of celebration on Thursday 31st October. Halloween and similar traditions, such as the Day of the Dead deriving from Mexico, were inspired by old pagan festivals honouring the dead as they experienced the sun ‘dying’ in the northern hemisphere at this time of year.

Here’s some fun and greenygrey photos to celebrate Halloween, with links to their original sharers on google+ within the images, and all the good people and animals that have left the living world:

Four-way greenygrey trowl (tree and owl) photo, which could also be described as poetry in owl tree:

Hi, it’s Mary Werewolfstonecraft, new philosophy correspondent at the Greenygrey. For humans reading this, my closest parallel in the human world is Mary Wollstonecraft, who is described in Philip Stokes’s Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkersas the original feminist, but who saw ‘the rights of both men and women as mutual and inextricably linked’, and ‘that slavery and the treatment of the poor at that time were immoral.’

Right Time and Place

Albert Camus’ tombstone in Lourmarin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think I probably got the job ahead of other great thinkers on the shortlist, Max Wolfer (Weber) and Albert Canis (Camus), because Marc Latham recently passed from the Kerouacian age to the Agnethan. That was of course explained in a recent blog here… and because I’m more a-were than them.

Talking of Marc Latham, I’ve got some of his recent thoughts and writing to report.

On Creativity in Humanity

In its On Books and Burning blog post City Jackdaw ended it by setting the question: Is it the appreciation of art, and of beauty, that sets us apart?

Marc Latham promptly answered with the comment: ‘I think all human civilisations have appreciated art, even if they burned art they didn’t agree with. I’m pretty sure most intelligent non-human life appreciates beauty, and the art of nature, judging from the way they soak up the sun and wind; and even rain and snow at times, such as after drought.’

Then after taking more time to think (having studied Latham for some years I have come to the opinion that he is more of a slow thinker than a prompt responder [I think I might have sounded like Marit Meredith’s Diary of a Would-Be-Protagonist there, which I’ve recently been reading!]), and remembering his knowledge gained and information shared over the six years of the Greenygrey, added this even more greenygrey philosophical comment; which also reminded me of ol’ Wollstonecraft’s description above, which I just re-read:

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. We thought about posting more of Marc Latham’s thoughts today, but decided that a light-hearted episode of Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Mapswould be more appropriate for the start of the weekend.

English: The first edition title page of Agnes Grey. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte took up the first two volumes of this edition. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wondered if a book of Grey was a sign, and quickly flicked through it. Although it was certainly not literary nonsense, it did not seem to have much relevance to my life or journey. So I didn’t investigate further, and donated it to the Bronte library Bronte section.

Whatever will be, will be,
and if Agnes Grey re-enters my story,
I will return to the Bronte area library,
and look it up under section Bronte.

Paddington Bear Gives us a Scare

We walked up through Bondi at quite a pace,
and were resting five minutes in Paddington place,
when a colourful bear entered the street
marching purposely in wellington-booted feet.

He looked harmless, dressed in an old coat and hat, and carrying a big suitcase, but you never know! He came right up to us and asked if this was the right direction for Peru.

English: The Paddington Bear statue at London Paddington railway station. This image is used in a Nintendo DSi in a travel application created by The Content Works (http://www.thecontentworks.com/). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Funnily enough, I’d seen a boat departing to Peru in a day or two on Bondi Beach, so I told the Paddington Bear.

He thanked me, and gave us a marmalade sandwich each before saying adios.

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey. I was delighted to see that there’s a new Marc Latham folding mirror poem on the fmpoetry.wordpress.com website yesterday.

Mirror Poem Inspired by Nature Words and Music

It followed seeing lots of Native American philosophy and wildlife conservation campaigns on Facebook and Google, along with taking part in a discussion on the City Jackdaw blog.

He was also listening to the Scoprions’ Fly to the Rainbow before writing it, and old Rainbow while writing it. They both have quite spacey environmentally conscious harking back to the old days lyrics.

The Scorpions video on YouTube also has lyrics on screen, which are quite poetic. The videos are embedded over on fmpoetry.wordpress.com if you want to watch and listen to them.

We don’t want to copy much here, so have included a couple of images instead. Here’s the poem:

P.S. I just noticed the two records are linked by rainbows. I don’t think Marc Latham noticed yesterday in his mad poetic rush to publish!

Fly to the Rainbow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Human Direction, Wildlife Freedom

nothing left, or up
outside the human mind
written down at least
do dolphins think
in such a way
or do they see the ocean
as eagles fly the sky

turning by sonar, circling on instinct

the land was once open
for nomadic tribes to follow seasons
each day like play
not worrying over
making roots of concrete
inside living mother earth
feeling down, squandered right